The Stranglers, John Keel, and The Men In Black

The Stranglers' British chart LP The Gospel According To The Meninblack was based around their investigation into UFOs and related matters:

"..While the words were just as important to us, of course, it was really the atmosphere we tried to create on this album because so much about the Meninblack and UFOs is steeped in mystery. If people really want to know something about the subject, the Meninblack is a good introduction but no more than that, and it should not be taken as a bible. It is after all, only a gospel."

In April 1981, JJ Burnel and Jet Black were introduced to John Keel in a coffee shop in New York, where they had an interview scheduled with High Times: "The interview was not so much an interview - more a catalyst to hear someone who had actually lived the last thirty years learning, researching and questioning related phenomena, trying to make sense from the mass of information, data and evidence."

Leading up to this meeting with John Keel: "..a very strange chain of events, a series of unusual occurrences had taken place in a well defined space of time to ourselves and those around us, which were connected with the time we started a more than passing interest and investigation into certain esoteric matters..."

These events which The Stranglers considered to be significant began on the day they were recording the track Meninblack for the LP The Raven.

[Jean-Jacques Burnel interview by Roger-Marc Van de Voorde, in Strangled Vol.2, No.6]

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